mr. chairman , i yield myself 7 minutes . 
mr. chairman , we all abhor the horrific cases of child murders or sex offenses committed by those who are referenced in the bill . 
but the question before us is whether what we are doing in the bill will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation or actually increase it . 
we should certainly seek to avoid enacting legislation that expends scarce resources in a manner that is not cost effective or that exacerbates the problem . 
it is clear that having police supervision and police awareness of the location and identification information about sex offenders is appropriate and helpful . 
but it is not clear that putting that information indiscriminately on the internet , regardless of the dangerousness of the individual , with no guidance or restriction of what people should do with the information , it is unclear whether that is helpful or harmful . 
there have been incidents of vigilantes and other activities where offenders have actually been driven underground , so you actually do not know where they are . 
that is certainly not good for children . 
and try to sell your home when a sex offender moves a few blocks away . 
are children actually helped by that ? 
that would be a necessary problem ; but there is no evidence that putting that information on the internet actually reduces the incidence of child molestation , so the real estate prices all over the neighborhood go down . 
now , research shows that 90 percent of sex offenses against children involve either family members or someone well known to the victim . 
so when you put names and addresses on the internet , 90 percent of the offenses are not even covered . 
we also have the situation where those on the internet are ostracized and subjected to public notoriety , embarrassment , ridicule , and harassment . 
in one actual case , a teacher was reading the names of offenders to grade school students in an apparent effort to protect them , when one student blurted out the question to another student : `` is that not your father ? 
`` this victimizes the victim twice and may well discourage offense reporting that is already considered very low in these situations . 
many offenders identified on the internet will not only become unemployed and unemployable because of that notoriety , but they may also have to leave their home to avoid embarrassment or other consequences to themselves and their families , and having done that , may just go underground and not bother to register again . 
where an offender clearly represents a threat to the public , perhaps the consequences to the victims and their family members can not be avoided ; but where the individual clearly does not present a threat to the public , informing the general public may do more harm than good . 
law enforcement and child-serving authorities should have access to the information . 
until they have reliable information to show that the impact of the internet will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation , we should be circumspect on how we use this information . 
now , we have taken a step in the right direction in the bill by encouraging those states and localities that are not already doing so to consider whether there are offenders who should be required to register , but may not have to be put on the internet . 
i am pleased , mr. chairman , that the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. sensenbrenner ) xz4003650 has indicated his willingness as the bill moves towards conference to continue to look for ways we might support the states and localities who are already making such assessments while encouraging those who are not making those assessments to do so . 
there are effective things we can do , and hopefully we will have amendments that will deal with this . 
because research has shown that intensive , therapeutic sexual offender treatment cuts sexual offense recidivism in half . 
fortunately , the evidence is that , even without the treatment , recidivism is low amongst sexual offenders of children . 
this is not what the legend is , but the facts are that a recent study by the department of justice showed that the rearrest rate among child molesters is 3.3 percent , much less than the recidivism rate of other criminals . 
any recidivism rate is too high , so i am pleased that we are working together to fashion a provision that will assure that all sex offenders in the federal system will receive appropriate , effective treatment prior to their release ; and i hope that we can continue to work together to provide a similar system for state offenders where we could significantly reduce child victimization by assuring access to effective treatment for all . 
now there are provisions in this legislation that are not based on research or sound reasoning like the death penalty , mandatory minimums , both of which have been studied and shown not to have any effect on crime . 
we also have the anomaly in this because it is federal legislation that because indian reservations , their sole access to courts is the federal system , they will all be under the federal system but most others will not . 
so it will have a disproportionate effect against native americans . 
now , day by day we are seeing more and more evidence that the death penalty administration is fraught with mistake , racial discrimination and it is applied in an arbitrary way . 
we have also seen the mandatory minimums have been shown to waste the taxpayers ' money , been racially discriminatory , and the judicial conference reminds us every time we have a mandatory minimum for consideration that mandatory minimums violate common sense compared to traditional sentencing approaches . 
this bill includes a 5-year mandatory minimum for any technical violation involved in registration . 
for example , if you are already registered and you attend the local community college but forgot to recognize that the community college is in a different jurisdiction and you should have registered there , too , well , that offense is subject to a 5-year mandatory minimum . 
notwithstanding the fact that the original offense was 15 years ago , was a misdemeanor for which no time was imposed , it is a 5-year mandatory minimum for the technical violation of not registering correctly . 
another provision that is in the bill that will not have much effect on reducing child molestation is eliminating the access to habeas corpus . 
that will not reduce sex crimes . 
all of these are good , politically appealing sound bites that will help politicians get elected but which have no evidence that they will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation . 
this bill will cost over $ 500 million over the next few years . 
we need to make sure that when we spend that kind of money that we actually do something constructive . 
here we have a bill with mandatory minimums , death penalties that have been shown that have nothing to do with reducing crime , it is primarily focused on native americans , and i would hope that we would support amendments to eliminate such extraneous matters on the bill so we can concentrate the $ 500 million on effective crime-reducing approaches . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
